more reasons to use cdist

Signed-off-by: Nico Schottelius <nico@brief.schottelius.org>
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Nico Schottelius 2012-11-21 11:26:52 +01:00
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[[!meta title="Why should I use cdist?"]] [[!meta title="Why should I use cdist?"]]
[[!toc]]
There are several motivations to use cdist, these There are several motivations to use cdist, these
are probably the most popular ones. are probably the most popular ones.
@ -30,8 +32,40 @@ If you compare regular shell scripting with cdist, there is one major
difference: When using cdist types, difference: When using cdist types,
the results are the results are
[idempotent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idempotence). [idempotent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idempotence).
In practise, that means it does not matter in which order you In practise that means it does not matter in which order you
call cdist types, the result is always the same. call cdist types, the result is always the same.
## Zero dependency configuration management
Cdist requires very litte on a target system. Even better,
in almost all cases all dependencies are usually fulfilled.
Cdist does not require an agent or a high level programming
languages on the target host: it will run on any host that
has an **ssh server running** and a posix compatible shell
(**/bin/sh**).
## Push based distribution
Cdist uses the push based model for configuration. In this
scenario, one (or more) computers connect the target hosts
and apply the configuration. That way the source host has
very little requirements: Cdist can even run on a sysadmin
notebook that is loosely connected to the network and has
limited amount of resources.
Furthermore, from a security point of view, only one machine
needs access to the target hosts. No target hosts will ever
need to connect back to the source host, which contains the
full configuration.
## Highly scalable
If at some point you manage more hosts than can be handled from
a single source host, you can simply add more resources: Either
add more cores to one host or add hosts.
Cdist will utilise the given resources in parallel.
## Integration into inventory management
[[!tag cdist unix]] [[!tag cdist unix]]